


Legends of Lava and Ocean

by RedBubbles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith is a volcano spirit, Lance is an ocean spirit, M/M, it's a symbiotic relationship that becomes a friendship that becomes a romantic relationship, spirit!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-08-19 09:04:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8199329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBubbles/pseuds/RedBubbles
Summary: Legends are told of the age old spirits, formed millennia ago from the very energy of the universe itself. The volcano spirit, Keith, who raises whole islands with one hand, and the ocean spirit Lance, who send oceans crashing over the world with a flick of his wrist. A friendship as turbulent as a hurricane forms first, becoming a relationship that seems as natural as the tides as the centuries pass. The stories told of them are as great as their deeds, yet the two boys live their legendary lives in quiet, slipping from land to sea, and watching as their work blooms into its own beautiful art





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This wonderful AU came from the beautiful brain of http://lionbots.tumblr.com/ (go check 'em out!). I saw this AU idea and I simply had to start writing it straight away. I hope this is going to be a slow burner (like a volcano, eyyyy) , but who knows! 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy! Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome!
> 
> (My Tumblr is http://dinosaur-proxy.tumblr.com/ )

“Tell me the island stories again,” lisps a voice from across the room. The man stood in the doorway pauses, and then turns, a kindly smile on his face.  
“I’ve told you so many times now, and it’s time for you to go to sleep,” he says, treading softly to the bed set against the wall. In the semi darkness, he can just about see the fascinated face of his granddaughter, gazing up at him.  
“But I like that story,”  
“Can’t you tell it to yourself?” the grandfather asks, smoothing back the child’s hair, “I’m sure you know it by now,”  
The girl huffs, blowing air up and ruffling her fringe.  
“But you tell it gooder,”  
“Better, dear, you say I tell it better,” the grandfather corrects her, then looks up at where the faint streetlight shines through the cracks in the curtain, “I suppose I can tell you a quick little one,”  
The girl beams at him, and snuggles down into the sheets, watching her grandfather expectantly. Her grandfather takes a deep breath in, and smiles.  
“It all began one day, when a little volcano spirit named Keith was just learning to create lava…”

————————————————————————

A lock of hair floats across Keith’s face and he brushes it back impatiently, then puffs out his chest, focusing on relaxing and clearing his head. The water around him is cool, but charged with life and energy, and the rockbed just beneath him is almost burning to the touch. 

He can feel the energy and searing heat from the magma below him, sense the ocean bursting with life around him, hear the rumbling of the tectonic plates far below him, yet he can’t summon anything. 

He opens his eyes again, frustrated, and a small shrimp flickers across the vision, watching him with interest. He ignores it, and looks around him. His hair once again floats around his face, and he pushes it back. Slowly, he lets himself rise a few inches, then stretches his feet out, letting the tips of his toes brush the rock beneath him.

He can feel the energy pumping through it, and it flows from the rock into him, making his veins feel as though they’re on fire in the best way possible, making his skin glow with a warm, orange shine. But he can’t release the energy. Can’t form it into anything. It stays trapped beneath him, within him, dormant and stale. 

“It can’t be stale,” he whispers into the darkness of the deep ocean, “it’s not stale. I can feel it. I know it,”

But that’s all he knows. All he knew from suddenly awaking in the crushing, dark, lonely depths, armed with nothing but his frantic thoughts and the pounding energy below him. 

He looks around, straining his eyes for some clue as to how he can find and release the energy. The shrimp darts back across his view, followed by two more. They seem attracted to his glowing body, and as he lets himself float horizontally, they flicker through his peripheral vision. 

He shuts his eyes again, and concentrates, reaching out in every direction to try and find the energy, trying to find somewhere or some way to release it. 

He stays motionless for seconds, spanning into minutes, and with a yell, his eyes snap open, and he hits out against the rock. His call echoes in the darkness, and nothing answers it. He draws his hand back from where he had punched the rock, knuckles smarting. He rubs them, and glares around him. The shrimps dart back and forth, up and down, whizzing around him dizzyingly fast, and he bats them away. They seem to get more and more excited, flying past him in a frenzy. There are at least 5 of them now, bundling together and weaving up and down. 

He lets himself curl up on the rock again, and it seems to heat up to warm him, even though he isn’t cold. He growls bitterly, folding his arms.  
“I don’t know what to do,” he mutters, hating himself for admitting it even though only he and the shrimp hear, “I don’t know where I am, or what to do,”  
The rock gets warmer, and it ripples beneath him. An odd feeling of comfort spreads through him, and the warmth settles over him like a mother’s embrace. He folds his arms against his chest, and glares into the darkness, as the rock beneath him warms his body.

The shrimps dart up and down, and they wriggle across his vision, darting in front of him, and then back over his shoulder, and the back to his face. He frowns at them. More have joined, and now at least 10 are hopping over him.  
“What do you want?” he demands, and one swims over to him, flicks his nose, and darts over his head again.  
“What is it?!” he asks again, louder, sitting up.

He sees light.

But not sunlight, or moonlight, or starlight.

He knows the name of it immediately, at it burns on his lips and his tongue, tasting of ash and spice and heat. 

Lavalight.

Cracks have appeared in the rock where he had punched, and through those cracks, bright orange lava boils up, cooling and hardening immediately. Keith bolts up, floating over the cracks, watching them widen and spread further away, watching with amazement as the water shimmers with heat, and smoke and dust rises from the cracks as well as lava. It flows over the rockbed, soft and pliant and glowing hot.

A wide smile grows on his face, and he sculls forward, looking left and right as the cracks grow longer and wider. The water seems to boil around him now, and smoke, sweet tasting smoke, flows into his mouth and into his nose and loads around him. 

He laughs and swims down to the widest crack, touching the edges of it gently. It’s the perfect temperature, he knows that instinctually, and it glows hotter at his touch, splitting into a little estuary. Tiny puffs of smoke caress his face, and he smiles, then swims on, following the cracks up and down as the lava rises underneath them, making the flat, boring rockbed come alive, rising into hills and plains and valleys. 

The energy he had felt before courses through him, and when he presses his palm flat against an empty space of rock, it splits immediately, revealing the magma beneath, bubbling up. The shrimp are multiplying into their hundreds now, clustering around the rising turrets of fresh rock. 

Keith looks about him, watching the light brighten the darkened water, feeling the heat burning around him, letting the energy and excitement and movement infect him until his swimming between the rocks, trailing his hands over the bed and opening great fiery chasms beneath him.

He’s flying, no longer in cold darkness, but in the excited, frothing, churning heat of the new volcano.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to have Lance be graceful and ethereal (which he is, don't get me wrong), but then I wrote the sentence 'I must be really deep now' and know that my meme son wouldn't let that slide

Lance gazes up through the rippling surface, eyes half lidded, his hands resting on his stomach. His legs kick lazily, and he moves at half a mile an hour through the water. Moonlight filters down through the water, scattering dappled ripples over his body. His eyes open as the moonlight falls on him, and he feels the familiar surge of energy, that pulls him up to the surface. He breaks free of the water, tiny waves splashing against his exposed shoulders. He lets his arms float up to rest on the surface, treading water easily, and tilts his head back, breathing in deeply. 

No land is in sight, it’s just him, the moon, and the ocean. As lonely as it may seem, he isn’t alone at all. He can feel the playful tug of a nearby current, the far off echoes of a pod of hunting orcas, the call of a mother whale to her calf.

He releases the breath and shuts his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the moonlight fall on his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips, his neck, his shoulders. He licks his lips and then opens his eyes, blinking the water off his eyelids. The moon shines above him, dominating the sky, surrounded by stars. 

The moon calls out to him, and he briefly wanders if there are moon spirits, like him, that call out to him, playing melodies that call squid up from the depths and guide sharks on their migrations. It’s a thought he’s entertained many times, thoughts of ethereal spirits, instead of just the elemental spirits on Earth. 

The pull the moon has on him mirrors the pull it has on the tides, drawing him closer, and telling him when to dive away.

He opens his eyes again, and dives. Below him is darkness, so he stays in the twilight zone, suspended between the light and the black. He sculls easily through the water, grinning. Occasionally, he’ll catch sight of a flickering shoal of mackerel, or the looming figure of a whale shark in the distance. He flips onto his back again.

The moon is distorted by the water, and he swims on his back, staring up at it, not taking his eyes off it. It’s a full moon, and he knows that somewhere, it’s beckoning baby turtles into the sea. He can feel the thousands of tiny heartbeats, and their racing energy and desperation to return to the ocean. 

The water is warm, and as he swims, the haunting cries of a whale reach his ears. He flips onto his front, and begins to swim faster, loving the feeling of the water rushing against his face.

Until…

Smoke. Thick, black, choking smoke, rising from somewhere. He’s over one of the deepest parts of the ocean, yet it’s almost as if someone has lit a fire and it’s gaining energy at an alarming rate. Lance dodges out the way as the smoke snakes past him, squinting into the depths of the sea, but all he can see is darkness. He swims to the surface, where the water is bubbling and frothing as the smoke and carbon dioxide is released. He frowns and dives back down, being careful not to swim into the tendrils of smoke. 

He begins to swim.

Right down, into the heart of the ocean.

It doesn’t affect him, or scare him to swim, into the depths, he just prefers to stay in the moonlit state that exists between the surface and the darkness. The pressure curls around him, not hurting him, just feeling like a warm, thick blanket. He swims strongly, no longer able to see the smoke, but able to sense it. He dodges as it reaches long arms out to him. He’ll choke if he gets lost in there.

A tiny flicker of movement catches his eye, and the brief flash of an angler fish’s luminescent light flares up. 

“I must be really deep now,” Lance mutters, continuing to swim on, then sniggers, “yeah, I’m reeeaaaallllyyyy deep,”

He chuckles to himself as he continues swimming, and after minutes, a glow begins to show itself below him. He squints, and it grows brighter. The smoke obscures it in places, but he can just about make out the piling rock and deep cracks between which bubble…

Lava.

It’s isn’t smoke that’s rising to the surface, it’s ash! He flips onto his back, and can just about see the eerie twisting of the ash, curling towards the surface. He flips back over and swims closer to the lava. The sea is boiling hot here, much warmer than any of the tropical seas, and it bursts with life and energy. 

Lance looks around at the heated water, that even itself seems to glow, and sees armies of shrimp clinging to the newly forming rocks and swimming in complicated patterns between the pillars of smoke. He swims closer to the rock, and reaches his hand out to touch it. He can barely get his fingertips within inches of it before the searing heat forces him to jerk his hand back.

He looks around again, at the splitting rock spitting thick mounds of lava through the cracks, and frowns. 

A flicker of movement behind him catches his attention and he spins around. The darkness gives him no clues, and he’s certain it wasn’t a shrimp. He squints into the darkness, and as he does, he sinks down a few feet. He doesn’t realise how much of a mistake this is until his foot connects with the burning hot rock, and scorches his foot.

With a scream of pain, he leaps up sculling well above the lava.

“Who are you?”

An unfamiliar voice.

A voice, hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the water.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They've finally met!! And they clearly hit it off, right?
> 
> Ahahaha, as if I'd make things easy for myself and have them somewhat get on from the start! Of course I'd make it so I'd have to develop the entire relationship!
> 
> Stayed tuned for more

A voice is the last thing he expected to hear. He looks around, eyes narrowed, trying to see who spoke. Nothing should be down here, except the shrimp, and everyone knows that shrimp can’t speak. A shape moves through the cloud of ash, and a face peers at him. A face with glowing skin and fierce eyes, and hair that’s stupidly long for existing in the sea. Lance’s eyes widen, and he scoffs.

“I’m Lance,”

The boy swims slightly closer, a puzzled expression on his face.

“The ocean spirit,”

The boy doesn’t seem to have any visible moment of recognition.

“You know,” he motions with his hands, “I control oceans,” 

“Aren’t you a sea spirit?” the boy asks, frowning. Lance scowls.  
“No, I’m an ocean spirit,” he sticks his chin in the air, “sea spirits have way less power,”

“I’m Keith,” the boy says, “I’m a volcano spirit,”  
“Yeah, I can see that,” Lance says, then gestures around him, “what the hell are you doing?”

Keith gives him a confused look, and then says slowly,  
“I’m making _volcanoes_?” he sculls forward a few feet, “because that’s what I do? Because I’m a volcano spirit?”  
“I’m an ocean spirit, but I don’t just create oceans whenever I want,”  
Keith stares at him, then slowly sinks down to the ocean floor. Lance reaches out.  
“Hey, don’t touch the rock, it’s really…hot,”

When Keith’s feet make contact, he merely smirks up at Lance, standing comfortably on the boiling rock.  
“Too hot for you?”  
Lance’s scowl returns, and he floats up, so he can stare down at Keith condescendingly.  
“You need to stop making volcanoes. It’s smoking up the entire ocean,”  
Keith shrugs and trails his hand over the rock, opening up another crack. Ash billows out as lava bubbles up.  
“You mean like this?” Keith asks, a sparkle of mirth in his eyes.  
“Yes, that!”  
Keith strokes the rock beneath him, and more ash flows into the water.  
“This?”  
He draws a little circle with the tip of his finger which glows orange and then implodes to form a little pool of lava, and Lance throws his arms out.  
“That! That there, what you’re doing! Stop it!”  
“Stop doing it?” Keith asks and then presses both hands against the rock as he leans back. Lance can actually hear the rumbling as the rock literally melts away to give way to the lava.

“STOP TOUCHING THE ROCKBED,”

He waves his hands in front of his face, the ash starting to choke him. He squints at Keith, who seems unfazed by the ash swirling around him, obscuring the water. The shrimp seem equally happy, darting back and forth. 

“You need to-“ he cuts off, coughing, and then covers his mouth with his hand, “you gotta stop making-“ he coughs again, and sculls backwards. A curtain of ash falls in front of him, hiding Keith. 

“Stop making volcanoes!” he shouts into the cloudy darkness, and then kicks frantically, rising fast above the ash. 

“You gonna stop me?” Keith calls after him, but Lance doesn’t reply. His eyes feel swollen, and he thinks he might be choking. Slowly, the light around him changes from black to dark blue, and way, way, way above him, very faintly, he can see the glow of the moon. 

He breaches the surface with a deep gasp, throwing his head back. The night air is so much sweeter and cooler after choking on ash, and he breathes in and out deeply. 

A single bubble of carbon dioxide pops beside him and he huffs, glaring down through the surface with enough power to make Keith feel it, and smirk, thousands of feet below.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! Sorry I wasn't able to update yesterday, I had my sixth form open evening! Very exciting, choosing my future and all that.
> 
> ANYWAY, back to the present, behold, a new chapter! I feel it's kind of boring, so I'll try and update asap tomorrow with some ore action, this is sort of a little filler. 
> 
> My friend who beta-d this for me asked if the three shrimp are representative of Shiro, Pidge and Hunk, and I honestly didn't write them that way, but if you want to interpret them that way, go ahead!

Keith obstinately swims back and forth over the bed, both hands trailing over the rock, opening up massive rows of cracks. The once flat plain is now aglow with red lava, and steep towers of new rock are erupting from the ground. Columns of ash rise slowly to the surface, moving like thick ink through the water. Keith presses both hands to the rock and holds them there. The rock begins to melt away, the water shimmering with the heat, and the cracks become one large pool of quickly hardening lava.

“Who’s he to tell me that I can’t make volcanoes,” he mutters, moving on and dragging his hands over the rock, “I’ll make as many volcanoes as I want,”

He continues swimming, but he can feel the energy that had once surged through him beginning to abate. The rocks are rising steadily, fed by thick lava that still bubbles up thickly from the cracks running across the rockbed. 

When he presses a hand to the rock, holds it there, and then pulls it away, the rock merely glows molten orange and a few seconds, then fades back to black. He sighs, and the spicy ash flows over his sinuses and tongue. He doesn’t feel tired or drained, the energy still thrums through him and around him, but he feels the heat beginning to fade from his fingertips and feet, slowly drawing back up his arms and settling in his chest. The glow from his skin fades significantly, and he sinks back down into a dip in the rocks.

He stares up, or in the direction he guesses is up. He’d never seen another spirit before.

If all other spirits were like him, he doesn’t want to meet another.

He rolls onto his side, pressing his ear to the rock. He can hear rumbling, deep in the earth, and feel the plates shifting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of feet below him. 

A shrimp settles in front of him, wiggling its tiny antennae at him. He flicks it away, and it darts out of his sight, and then bobs back again, with two other shrimp in tow. Their tiny legs tap on the rock, and they settle on it, then hop up. He watches them, not moving. They touch the rock, then hop up again.

“I can’t make more lava,” Keith says aloud to them, then immediately feels foolish. They can’t speak to him, or probably even understand him. All they can probably feel is the decreasing warmth in the water. They hop up and down, wiggling their antennae madly.  
“I can’t make more lava!” he says, raising his voice. The largest shrimp darts forward and flicks his nose. He bats it away with his hand.  
“Hey, get off!” 

He sits up, and pushes off the rock, floating a little higher than the shrimp-clad rocks.  
The little trio of shrimp follow him, and begin circling him, touching the rocks, and floating as close to the still-glowing cracks of lava as they dare, and then dancing around him. He bats at them, sculling backwards.  
“Are all sea creatures as annoying as you?” he demands, irritated, and they hover a few feet from him, madly wiggling their antennae. He immediately feels stupid for talking to them.  
“Did Lance create you?” he asks. One shrimp bobs up and down, and the other two come closer, swimming into his arms. He hits them away.  
“I don’t why I asked, he obviously did!” he snaps at the little shrimp, “nothing this annoying could have been made by him!” 

They finally drift away, obviously bored of whatever game they had been playing. 

Keith huffs, and settles back in the rock, curling up.  
“Stupid ocean spirit, acting all high and mighty, saying i can’t make my volcanoes,” he mutters to himself childishly, “what if I tell him he can’t make his precious oceans anymore!”  
He continues muttering to himself, his words slowly becoming nonsensical babble, and he drifts slowly into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I sure feel shitty! Almost a month with no update and I present you with...this tiny crap heap. I'm so sorry!!! I've been rushing around trying to sort out my parent's turbulent relationship, and the new puppy we're getting, and school work, and I've been putting this off so much. Hopefully I'll be able to sort out a semi-decent updating schedule (maybe weekly, or even bi-weekly? We'll see how the writing goes)

The swell of the waves cradle Lance gently as he glares down at the darkness of the deep ocean. The rising ash and carbon dioxide had stopped hours ago, but he hasn’t moved, knowing that the egocentric volcano spirit will probably start lava production up again the second he’s gone. A tiny bubble trails up from the darkness, and Lance inhales as deeply as he can, cups his hands around his mouth and roars,

“STOP. CREATING. LAVA!” 

A terrified guppy darts of from underneath him, its rainbow coloured fins flashing in the light as it makes a hasty retreat.

He glowers into the deep, folding his arms.

“Stupid lava spirit, thinking he can control everything,” he mutters, “I’m an ocean spirit, I’m like, a way bigger deal,”

He flips onto his back, glaring up at the rippling surface.

“What’s even so great about being a lava spirit anyway. You get to make some fire, sculpt some rock, maybe attract a shrimp or two, but that’s it!”

He throws his arms out, and the water above him parts suddenly and violently in two huge waves, momentarily throwing him up into the air.

“I can do so much more than that!” he snaps as he sinks back beneath the surface, wiggling his fingers and watching the little bubbles dance between them, “I can make currents and tsunamis and riptides,” he scowls, “I could, if I wanted to,”

He snaps his fingers, and a little curve of bubbles swirls around it, a wisp of a current, dancing around his index finger momentarily, then disappearing. He tries twirling his finger in a circle, but the tiny current has disappeared. 

“He thinks he’s so cool with his lava and his rocks and his shrimp and his…his…his mullet!” 

He sighs, and a few more bubbles float up from underneath him. He glances over his shoulder.

“STOP MAKING LAVA,”

He grumbles, kicking his legs gently.  
“Shouldn’t even call him a lava spirit, more like a mullet spirit…” he mutters, “his hair is way too long for surviving in the sea! Sooner or later he’ll get it caught in an oar of seaweed, or he’ll get fish scales caught in it, or one of his stupid shrimp will swim into it and get tangled up,”

He spreads his arms out, and swims to the surface. The sun is beginning to set over the water, casting a golden glow over the gently undulating waves. The sea stretches endlessly into the distance, and Lance wonders for how much longer this will be the case. He tilts his head up, looking up at the sky, and pushes his wet fringe back from his forehead.

“Volcanoes mean land,” he says, “and land means less ocean. Land means hurricanes, and tornadoes and tropical storms,”

He groans, and lays on his back, letting the water surround him as he stares up at the reddening clouds.

“Volcano spirits always muck everything up,” he mutters, “so moody and temperamental. Why did I have to have one as a rival?”

As if in response, a huge bubble of carbon dioxide and ash pops beside him, and he darts to the side. He growls and dives back under the water fluidly.

“STOP MAKING LAVA!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BECAUSE THIS IS SUCH A SHORT, SHITTY CHAPTER, I'M GOING TO UPDATE TOMORROW. PLEASE SLAP ME IF I DON'T

Keith had been swimming for days, maybe weeks. His legs are weary, and his arms ache, but he doesn’t want to stop swimming, not until he's swum around the whole world. 

He had woken up, surrounded by magnificent turrets of stone and swarmed by over-friendly shrimp, and had decided to see what lay beyond his field of vision, to explore the stretching darkness.

And so, he had begun to swim.

He lets his hand trail along the stone floor of the ocean, feeling the energy pounding beneath it. He hadn’t managed to summon any more lava, but he could feel it’s presence far beneath him, and he knew he hadn’t seen the last of it. Still, the familiar columns of rock and the shrimp took presence in his mind, as if an invisible line was connecting them, one he could always follow to find his way back again. 

The darkness still surrounds him, as ever present and crushing as ever, but comforting. The occasional bobbing light of an angler fish, or the sleek, shimmering body of a squid darts in and out of his field of vision every so often, but he ignores them as much as they ignore him. 

Slowly, without him realising, the ground begins to slope up, ever so slightly. 

The rock is rough and warm beneath his palm, and he sculls strongly with his other arm, kicking his legs. Swimming was odd at first, as it didn’t seem entirely natural, like trying to walk on your hands and knees, but he’d mostly gotten hang of it, and was even starting to enjoy the rhythm of his strokes. 

He keeps swimming through the darkness.

Only…it isn’t darkness anymore. The water around him is turning faintly grey, but the rock is still solid beneath him. Keith pauses and looks around, then continues swimming. The rock is definitely starting to slope up, and small pebbles and tiny wisps of seaweed cling to the bed. Keith looks up, and something way, way, way above him shines faintly, making the water every so slightly lighter.

He continues swimming, going slightly faster despite his aching limbs, and the water becomes clearer, lighter, until he can see the grooves and ridges that loop across the rock, and tiny tufts of sea flora drift around him. There are more fish now, and crabs and lobsters and sea urchins, animals Keith has never seen before. 

A bright blue lobster clicks its mighty pincers at him, and he sculls backwards a little, floating way above the lobster so it can’t reach him.

He keeps swimming, faster and faster, keeping close to the rock bed but also coming closer to the light.

Finally, the rippling, shimmering surface is just a few dozen feet above him and he allows himself to float, looking up. Fine sand covers the rock now, drifting slightly. Above him, the water curls and crashes as waves break on the rock.

He’s found land.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, longer, and (hopefully) better chapter, and the introduction of a new spirit!

Keith stares up at the surface in amazement. Shafts of light float down to meet him, running over his body. He narrows his eyes slightly at the light, which is pale and ghostly. The distorted sky above the waves is black, and slowly, he pushes off the rock bed, allowing himself for the first time to come closer to the surface.

20 feet, then 10 feet. His toes knock against the sand, digging into the soft surface. 5 feet, if he cranes his head up, he can see the rippling moon. 2 feet, and his head has almost breached the surface, yet the sand below him, and the lava below that, is still right under his feet. Just a few inches between him and the surface, and then…

He bursts free of the water, taking his first breath of air.

The feeling of air filling his lungs instead of water feels odd, and he coughs, spitting up water. Waves wash around him, breaking gently on the beach. He tilts his head back, and his mouth drops open.

The sky above him is studded with diamonds, glittering, sparkling stars, and arching his above his head are the omnipresent, glowing lights of a galaxy. 

Keith has never seen a sight quite as beautiful, nor as many colours as are beheld to him in that moment. 

The stars shine blue, gold and white, and the galaxy that tears across the sky is pale purple, glittering against the black sky. Tiny meteors every so often flash across the sky, and Keith can barely tear his eyes away.

He pulls himself out of the water a little more, and slowly clambers to his feet. 

He immediately falls over again, splashing in the surf as the waves wash over his head.

He rises out of the water again, sitting up and pushing his hair off his face. The water washes around his waist, and he slow kneels up, finding his balance, and then getting onto all fours, letting his feet adjust to his whole body weight, instead of being carried by the water.

He slowly stands up, and the water laps at his shins. 

With a tentatively step forward, Keith begins to make his way out of the water, and up the sand.

It’s a tiny island, with the barest covering of trees and sparse grasses, but they’re colours and textures that Keith has never seen. High, arching palms trees with coconuts, tough, long grasses, great clumps of ferns and fallen vegetation, and crabs and birds fluttering along the sand.

The animals seem completely unperturbed by him, and a small sand piper hops down the beach, scuttles around in the water, and then hops out again, carrying a shell in its beak. 

Keith crouches down, and sifts the sand through his fingers, looking around him, and at himself. It had always been too dark for him to see himself properly before, but now he’s struck by how pale his skin is, at the fine, dark hairs on his arms and every jut and angle of his bones beneath his skin. He picks up a razor shell and turns it over in his hands, admiring the sheen of mother-of-pearl on the inside. 

There’s a soft rustling, and Keith looks up. A pair of bright, alert eyes are watching him from within the trees. Keith leaps up, stumbling backwards, slipping in the sand.

“Hey, wait,”

A hand reaches out from the undergrowth, pulling a clump of leaves aside, and a tall, stocky boy emerges from the trees. A yellow bandana is tied around his head, keeping his silky black hair from falling in his eyes, and he’s barefooted. He smiles at Keith, but Keith just stares at him.

The two stare at each other for a few minutes, the only sounds being the waves breaking on the shore, and the quiet chirping of insects.

“Please tell me you aren’t another ocean spirit,” 

The boy’s eyes light up, and his smile widens.  
“You’ve met Lance?” he asks as he walks forward, and then holds out his hand, “I’m Hunk. I’m an earth spirit,”  
Keith hesitates, and then shakes Hunk’s hand.  
“I’m Keith. I’m a volcano spirit,”  
Hunk’s eyes brighten a little.  
“A volcano spirit? Is this your island?”  
Keith frowns.  
“My what?”  
“Your island, did you create it?”  
Keith narrows his eyes slightly.  
“I…don’t know how to make islands,”

Hunk just gives him another smile, and Keith returns it.  
“You must be a newer spirit. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. There aren’t many around, and they’re all tiny. Most of the land is Pangea,” Hunk tells him.

Keith looks up and down the beach, and then at the trees.   
“Did you make all this?” he asks, gesturing to the meagre, but still impressive, forest. Hunk grins and turns look at it too.  
“Yeah. It doesn’t look like much now, but give it a few hundred years and it’ll be flourishing,”  
“A few _hundred_ years?” Keith asks disbelievingly.   
“Yeah. Thinks don’t get here over night. Growing takes time,"

Keith looks around again. The moon casts a silvery glow over everything, and a few lonesome crabs scuttle down the sand to the waves. He turns, and looks out over the ocean. It’s vast, much bigger than he had realised, and the moon carves a slivery, undulated path across the dark water.

“How did you make all this stuff?” Keith asks curiously, turning back to Hunk. He shrugs.  
“You just feel it. You can be, I dunno, walking along the sand and then you’ll suddenly feel this thing deep inside you and know that the ground you’re standing on his the perfect place for a tree,” he scratches the back of his neck, “but, uh, that’s just me. It might be different for volcano spirits,”  
Keith shakes his head.  
“No, I get it,” he looks down at his palms, which are slightly red, “I feel it too, but only when I’m at the bottom of the ocean. And it comes and goes,”  
“It’s like that for everyone. Ocean spirits can't always create more sea water, or waves. Plasma spirits can’t always create storms, and-“  
“Wait, there are other spirits?” Keith asks, cutting Hunk off, “like, others like us?”  
“Sure. You’ve met Lance, right? There are spirits for every major element. You aren’t the only volcano spirit, just like I’m not the only earth spirit,”  
“So there would be…animal spirits?”  
“Yeah!”

Keith suddenly feels a little guilty for yelling at the shrimp.

“Is your volcano near this island?”   
Keith thinks for a minute.  
“I have no idea. I just started swimming. It’s so dark down there, I have no idea how much times passes,”  
“You’re probably a decent distance away. Islands aren’t usually very close together,”

Keith looks back out over the ocean, at the tiny waves lapping against the shore.   
“I think I’ll be able to find my way back,”  
“Well, good luck,” Hunk gives him another friendly smile, “hopefully I’ll get to meet you again,”  
Keith smiles back.  
“Yeah. Good luck with the forest,”  
“Good luck with the volcanos. Maybe I’ll get to see some of your islands one day!”

Keith nods, and Hunk melts back into the trees. Keith turns and walks down to the water. The invisible line connecting him to his volcano seems tauter than usual, and he wades out until he’s knee deep in the water, and then dives into the oncoming waves, and swims straight down, back into the comforting darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! A somewhat regular update!!! Wow, Bella, you're on a roll!!! 
> 
> Y'all seemed to really like Hunk in the last one (ok, I say "y'all"...like one person said "yay Hunk" but I love Hunk, so here, have more Hunk. Idk how much he's actually going to show up in the main story, so love him while you have him)
> 
> OK SO I've added a lil bit to the headcanon. The spirits basically instinctually know about their element, what it's called, how much there is, how much space it takes up etc...it just made sense? Because they're the literal embodiment of that element, it's sort of like you knowing how to move your fingers, or that your feet are what you stand on, it's just knowledge that's there

Lance presses his cheek to a rock, and crosses his arms, slumping over.  
“I think he seemed really nice,” Hunk says for the fiftieth time, “a little closed off, but he was friendly enough,”  
“It’s because he lives at the bottom of the ocean. I actually socialise with other creatures and spirits,” Lance grumbles, and then sits up, pointing to where a shoal of mackerel swim beneath the surface, making the water ripple, “see those fish? They’re vying for my attention. Can’t get enough of me,”

Hunk draws shapes on the rock, small curls of moss blooming under the pad of his finger. Lance flops against the rock again, then shades his eyes and looks up at the sky.  
“Do you think there’s a storm coming?”  
Hunk looks up at the sky too. It’s clear, cloudless and still. The barest hint of a breeze blows towards the trees.  
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, and then goes back to drawing moss on the rock, “it’s kinda still,”  
“I bet mullet volcano boy will love the storm. Lightning and erupting volcanos love going together,”  
“I don’t think he’s made a volcano that can erupt above ground yet,” Hunk says. A thick, spongey pad of moss has sprung out of the bare rock, and he smiles, pressing his finger down onto the edge of it. A tiny flower springs up as he removes his finger.  
“Oh, I know that,” Lance says, and then sits up bad temperedly, “did I tell you what he was doing a few months ago?”  
“No,” Hunk says placidly, “what was he doing?”

Lance leaps up and throws his arms out dramatically.  
“Making lava!”  
Hunk frowns a little.  
“Isn’t…isn’t that what volcano spirits do?”

Lance scowls.  
“Well…well, yeah, but he was making tons of it! It was choking me,” he puts his hands around his throat, “and choking the water! And there was so much ash and dust and carbon dioxide, I’m amazed he didn’t kill me! The water was so boiling hot, I was being cooked alive, so I swam down, all the fucking way down to the very bottom of the ocean where that mullet-weilding hermit lives, and guess what I said to him?”  
“What did you say?” Hunk asks, enthralled, leaning forward with his hands on his knees.  
“I said ‘listen here, mullet boy, I know that you’re excited about discovering you’re new, mystical powers’” Lance waves his arms, as though conjuring lava, and the waves behind them rise a little, smashing into the beach, “‘but you’re choking up the whole, entire ocean! My entire ocean!’”  
Hunk grins.  
“Whoa, you really told him!”  
Lance smirks.  
“Of course I did,” he says, brushing a speck of sand off his shoulder, “you have to be tough with those rogue types, not to mention your rivals. He was doing something wrong so I-“ Lance tosses his head, and puts his hands on his hips, striking a heroic stance, “-I stopped him,”

“What about that saying ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?’” Hunk says, sitting back and digging his feet into the sand. Lance pulls a face.  
“I’m very happy hanging around at the surface, 3,688 metres away from him,”  
Hunk tilts his head to the side.  
“That’s a specific number. Where did that come from?”  
“Average depth of Panthalassa,” Lance answers, “it’s common knowledge, at least for me,”  
“Wow, Lance, that’s amazing, but, uh…what’s Panthalassa?"  
“The world ocean,”  
“Wow, that’s awesome,"  
Lance grins.  
“I know, I am,” then he pauses, “well, you know how much land there is, right?”  
“Pangea takes up about 34% of the world’s total area,” Hunk answers immediately, “but sea levels are rising, so that might change,”  
“What the hell is Pangea?”  
“The land,”  
“Did you come up with that name?”

Hunk shakes his head.  
“Did you think up Panthalassa?”  
Now it’s Lance’s turn to shake his head.  
“I just…know it. Like, that’s the name of the ocean, and how deep it is. It’s there, in my head,”  
“Yeah, that’s like me with Pangea, and how much space it takes up,”

“Who do you think puts this information in our heads?” Lance asks after a moment of silence. Hunk stares down at the rock, and then looks back out to sea, frowning slightly and chewing on his lower lip.  
“I wish they’d put that kind of information in our heads too,” he says after a few minutes, “it’d be nice knowing where we came from,”  
“Yeah,” Lance says, wandering back over and settling next to the rock, “I wish we could find out,"


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY

Meanwhile, at the very bottom of the ocean, nestled between two towering rock pillars, Keith was wondering the exact same thing. He stares up into the darkness, following a the glow of a football fish as it swam between the pillars of rock. They had grown taller, fed by the churning magma beneath the rock bed. They’re almost twice as tall as him now. It was slow going, but the lava beneath him was certainly working.

He shuts his eyes and breathes in deeply, feeling the spice of the water flowing over his sinuses.

_There were others, like him_

And they knew more than him, more about where they were from, what they could do, and what was going on around them.

The football fish swims across him, its eyes bugging out as it stares at him blankly. He stares back, and puts his arms behind his head. His eyes burn with exhaustion, but he wants to stay up a little longer trying to work things out.

There’s information in his head, he knows it, he just needs to know how to access it, like how he worked out how to control the flow of the lava.

He yawns. His sleep had been so fragmented lately. Usually he slept like a baby, but lately he had been waking up, feeling tremors and shifting beneath him, rumbling deep in the Earth, like some great animal was stirring from a slumber.

He presses his hand flat against the rock.

Time moved differently for him, he knew that. Maybe it was the same for all spirits? He had noticed that, because as he had been swimming back, he had decided to swim back to the surface before the bed dropped away into the pressing darkness, and as he looked back at Hunk’s island, the trees had seemed taller, thicker, and the whole island had just seemed… _bigger_

And then, when he had returned to the forest of spiked pillars, they had grown much taller and wider, and much more numerous. They now stretched into the distance, and some had merged to form huge columns.

Time moved so fast, but he didn’t seem to age with it.

He presses his knuckles into his eyes and grits his teeth, willing himself to stay awake. So many questions swirl in his head, questions he wished he had asked Hunk when he had the chance.

He sighs. He didn’t age, but he didn’t grow up. His face and body looked exactly the same as the day he had woken up, however long ago that had been. Was that just how he had been born? 

Had he even been born? Or was he created from the ash and lava, like the columns and rock.

He pinches his cheeks and squeezes his wrists. He feels soft enough, not like the rough, hard rock beneath him, and his skin is warm, but no where near as warm as the lava. He runs his fingers through his hair. It certainly doesn’t feel like anything lava could create. 

But if lava hadn’t created him, what had?

He groans softly and rubs his eyes again, grumbling. He yawns, and decides to put his roaring thoughts out of his mind for the night. Or day. Or whatever time it was.

He stretches out and then curls in, rolling onto his side. The water cradles him, and the rock is warm beneath him.

He yawns again and tucks his arms against his body. Within seconds, he’s drifted into sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry!!! I said I'd update bi-weekly, and then I go off and leave for YEARS and then I come back with a small crappy thing and I am so very sorry!! Every time I update I get an influx of hits and kudos and nice, sweet, supportive comments, and I feel so bad leaving you guys for ages and then producing something small and bad.
> 
> Anyway, this is the beginning of some ACTION. Can anyone guess what's going on?

Keith swims up and down, up and down, up and down, kicking impatiently, his movements discordant and awkward.

He’s been swimming for what feels like days, and yet he’s no where near tired. He’s been bursting with energy for weeks now, but it was peaking now. At first it had only been a small itch that had him swimming faster and scaling the towering pillars of rock that were reaching about the height of a skyscraper (whatever that was; Keith had no idea what a skyscraper even _was_ ). Then he had been chasing after the shrimp and backflipping through the water and bouncing his leg or clicking his fingers whenever he tried to lay still.

He hadn’t slept in weeks, but he’s not feeling tired at all.

Energy thrums through the rockbed beneath him, and with each shift of the tectonic plates, Keith feels like his own bones are rattling and shaking and it’s horrible.

He swims between the pillars, and then pinches the root of his nose, groaning.  
“Just…stop,” he mutters to himself, slowly floating to the rockbed. He leans against a pillar, and immediately wants to be up and moving again. He can feel and hear the plates underneath him creaking, and it seems like the bed is almost rippling with the energy and magma surging beneath it. 

He grinds his teeth and bounces his leg, tapping his fingers against the rock. The glow of a football fish catches his eye, and he watches as it threads its way between the rocks, bulging, blind eyes passing over him. 

He had realised that everything in the deep ocean had looked weird, and regularly ran his fingers over his own features to check that they weren’t warped and distorted. He also frequently remembered his reflection in the water that night he had gone to the surface, but it didn’t bring much comfort. With nothing reflective here, how could he be sure he still looked the same?

The ground beneath him rumbles deeply, and he jumps a little, looking down. The football fish swims on slowly, unperturbed, but Keith presses a hand to the ground. The rock doesn’t glow or melt away, but it trembles again. He withdraws his hand, and then looks around, frowning.

The ground groans and shakes, and this time he can actually feel it moving the water, the waves brushing his hair across his face. Keith pushes it back and looks around again.

“Lance?” he calls out into the dark water, half expecting the boy to come plunging out from behind a pillar, a shit-eating grin on his face. 

But nothing moves.

Well, not until the ground shudders again, even harder than before, and a massive crack appears in the ground, magma glowing up through it, illuminating Keith momentarily. 

He dives down, inspecting it carefully. The cracks fades, but not before spewing new lava into the water.

Keith looks left and right, and the ground rumbles again, sounding almost as if the earth is growling, like a beast preparing to tear something apart.

The rockbed cracks again, deeper, wider and faster, spreading and looping between the rock pillars, spitting lava into the water. 

The earth groans again, and the shaking starts again, rattling the teeth in Keith’s jaw. The energy bundles up inside him, mirroring the energy spreading through the Earth, and he sculls forward strongly, looking left and right, down at the glowing cracks of lava, some wider than he is tall, great, glowing maws of a beast sheltering deep inside the mantle.

The entire ocean seems to be shaking now, and Keith can feel the same fiery burn in the marrow of his bones and the pit of his stomach as he had the day he had first woken up, and he grins. 

The lava is on the move, and the young lava spirit has to move with it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok!!!! This update has actually come...at a sensible time...in proximity...to the last one????
> 
> Wow, I'm really getting my shit together! Wish I had this much motivation to revise for my exams!

It had been a blissfully long time since Lance had last seen Keith. _Blissful_. He had spent his long, lazy days sculling through warm waters, sleeping in sand ridges, sunbathing on beaches surrounded by busy crabs, diving in and out of small, playful currents that crisscrossed throughout the water.

And he had been doing all of it without the slightest hint that there was any volcanic activity was happening anywhere.

In short, Lance had been having a very happy few months.

He swims lazily through the water, looking around for a current. Today had been a perfect day for current hopping, the act of leaping from current to current and letting them take him wherever they went, because it was slightly colder than usual, and the constant movement kept his blood moving. 

Below him, he can see the sun reflecting off the writhing surface of a current, scattering fractals of light across the darkness below. He dives towards it, the pull getting stronger as he gets closer. Very thin and snake-like, coiling and twisting sharply, this current was small and strong and deep green in colour, racing off into the ocean. Lance lines himself up parallel with it, and then dives in. For a second, he's buffeted and smacked by the pounding water inside, and then, as he enters the centre of the current, everything becomes clear and still, and he’s racing out to sea.

It’s like being inside a very thin tube, and his arms are held firmly at his sides as he rushes through the water. His hair is pushed off his face, and the current bends sharply, and Lance is almost thrown from it. At the last minute he jackknifes, following the current downwards. 

A low rumble makes the current quiver, and Lance looks around. The water is growing darker as the current snakes down into the depths, and once again, a low, groaning rumble makes it shake, rattling Lance inside. He squints down, unable to see how far down the current goes. 

He doesn’t have to worry much, because a sudden jolt running through the very water scatters the current, and Lance tumbles out of it, disorientated, shaken and dizzy. He floats in the darkness for a few seconds, and the blinks, slowly realising what had happened. He looks around, frowning.

The current has been completely shattered, so he can’t tell which was is up or down. 

The ocean seems to shake again, and water buffets him. He frowns and looks around. The very faint glow above him seems to waver as yet another tremor shakes the water, and he strikes towards it, towards what he hopes is the surface.

The water around him seems to be vibrating, and he frowns, looking around again as he swims.

Then, a thought occurs to him, and he pauses.

This seems like a very devious _trick_ that one could play.

And the only one who would be able to make the Earth shake would be a…

“Keith!” Lance yells into the emptiness, “I know that’s you!”

Nothing answers him. Another low, grinding tremor shakes the water, and Lance sculls up a little more, looking down.

“Funny joke, mullet boy,” he yells, spinning around, thinking that perhaps Keith is hiding behind him, “very funny!”

But no one appears.

Lance deliberates staying to chase Keith out of hiding, but decides against it. The water is cold, and every shake rattles his teeth. He’d much rather find Hunk and find out what the hell is going on. 

He continues swimming, sculling towards the surface, and then suddenly, a very familiar feeling washes over him. He stops dead, hanging in the water. The light is brighter now, and he can just about make out the shapes of his own arms and legs.

He can feel great bounds of energy building inside him, crashing through his chest and limbs and head likes waves on a beach.

The oceans are moving, and the young ocean spirit must move with them.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is happening, and it's gonna be big.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's a lazy mentally ill fanfic writer? I am! I'm so, so, so very sorry!
> 
> But hey, new update! If you're reading this, you're either in the future, or you're VERY patient. Either way, thanks for reading this!
> 
> I only just came up with the idea of the spirits ageing with the events that their elements go through, and honestly, I kinda like it! Let me know if you do too

Lance plunges through the dark water, swimming strongly, and diving straight down. The darkness swallows him up, and the pressure pushes around him, compressing his chest and wrapping around his arms. He kicks out hard.

He can feel energy thrumming through the water around him, and he can almost feel the waves rippling over his skin, almost as if he’s lying in the surf. Except these waves feel much, much stronger, crashing and breaking and raging against the land as it splits right down the middle.

 _I should go see Hunk_ he thinks as he swims down _I wonder if he’s feeling this too_.

He feels so…so alive. As though ever cell in his body is suddenly responding to the pull of the moon, every surge of the waves, every twist and curve in every current, every drop of salt in every ocean on every planet. 

He feels as though his body is moving in perfect tandem with every molecule of water in the ocean.

For the first time since he’d come to being, he _feels_ like he is an ocean spirit. He feels like he is the ocean.

Despite the gradual increase of pressure, the fading light, the crush of darkness, Lance has never felt more alive. 

He can feel every sinuous turn of a shark, hear the whistles of a hunting school of orca, taste the blood of a seal meeting its end in the jaws of an orca. Everything is connected, connected to him.

If only Lance could see himself, see his limbs lengthening, his face growing narrower, his features becoming older, changing from childish and rounded to the sharp edges and lines of a young adolescent.

Changing as the sea does, shifting and growing and moving. 

The first warning drifts of spicy ash float across his sinuses, and for the first time in a long time, Lance feels almost excited to see Keith. Despite their rivalry (which, Lance thinks, is still VERY much alive and VERY much a thing, despite his eagerness to see the lava spirit), he knows that this is something big, something special, something they will affect all of them. 

Maybe some new spirits will appear.

Hopefully some pretty lady spirits.

Lance drifts, his strong strokes becoming a little less frantic, as he daydreams.

Maybe a mermaid spirit, with a glittering tail and long flowing hair and flawless skin. Or a dolphin spirit, with a laugh like sunshine, and wit and intelligence and a fantastic sense of humour. Or an ice spirit, with an icy touch and a cutting tongue and a stare that could shatter hearts.

A lazy grin grows on his face. 

Then, as though he’s been hit by a bolt of lightning, his entire body jerks, and a huge surge of energy flows through him. He can _feel_ the waves flowing through his body as though they’re his own blood, being pumped by his own heart.

He kicks out again, fighting easily against the pressure. The smoke and ash swirls through the water, but Lance doesn’t even have the capacity to be angry. For once, the smoke is a sign that something really is happening, that he isn’t just experiencing some odd energy surge from no where.

The darkness is all-encompassing now. Lance can barely see his hand in front of his face now.

He continues swimming, feeling the heat and pressure grow, trying to gauge his proximity to the ocean floor so as not to swim right into his and burn himself to a crisp.

Just as the heat begins to become unbearable, and pulls himself up, looking around in the darkness, trying to see any sign of light, or of Keith.

“Come out, Mullet head!” he yells into the suffocating darkness, cupping his hands around his mouth, “now’s your chance to be a proper spirit,”

No reply, but Lance just spins around. 

“Oh, Kei~th! Kei~th!” he calls, “something big is happening, and we get front row seats!”

Deep in the darkness to Lance’s right, Keith stirs, stretching and flexing his energy-flooded muscles. 

“Let’s go,” he whispers to himself, pushing off the rocks and swimming towards Lance.


End file.
